Omar Hakim

A Legendary Player Talks In-Depth About the Power of V-Drums

Omar Hakim

A true drummer’s drummer, Omar Hakim has enjoyed a longtime career at the very top of his profession. As an A-List player both on stage and in the studio since the 1970s, his incredible versatility puts him in an elite class that few players ever achieve. Omar has performed and recorded with a dizzying array of influential artists, including Miles Davis, Sting, Weather Report, Madonna, David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Dire Straits…the list just goes on and on. Along with his wife, jazz pianist Rachel Z, he records and tours with the Trio of Oz, and he’s even stepped into the country/bluegrass world recently, backing renowned Dobro and lap steel player Jerry Douglas.

From the very start of his career, Omar openly embraced the possibilities of using electronic drums right alongside his acoustic setup. He was perhaps the first top-level pro to adopt Roland’s V-Drums for high-profile live performance, using a TD-10 kit on tour with Madonna in 1998, shortly after the V-Drums were introduced. In the years since, V-Drums have continued to be an essential part of Omar’s musical toolkit for live playing, session work, and composing in his home studio. He has the highest praise for his newly acquired TD-30KV V-Pro Series kit, saying, “I’m able to really connect my physical motion and emotion to the instrument effortlessly.”

Omar sat down with us recently to talk electronic percussion. In this in-depth interview, he details his long background with drum electronics and V-Drums, and talks about the many ways he employs them in all his musical activities. His insights here provide a truly inspiring look into the many amazing possibilities this technology offers, from the standpoint of a world-class artist who’s used V-Drums as a regular part of his musical life for 16 years.

When did you first start to explore drum machines and electronic percussion?

My first introduction to electronic drums would have been in the late 1970s with a little device called the Syndrum. But fast forward a little bit, I started coming on the session scene in New York City right at the moment the LinnDrum was starting to put a lot of drummers out of work. I’m like, “Wait a minute. You mean to tell me everybody’s starting to program and they’re not really using us?” I went right to Manny’s Music in New York City and got myself a LinnDrum, learned how to program that thing, and added that to my business card promptly.

I was young, I was open-minded, I wasn’t stuck in a particular way of doing things, and I understood that if I wanted to make it and be competitive in New York City at that time, that I was going to have to make electronics part of my professional arsenal. And so it started with that investment. And then other drum machines, I’ve had them all and I’ve used them alongside an acoustic kit. Instead of using a regular metronome in the studio, I would bring my drum machine. I’d program some kind of percussion loop that was a lot more fun to play with than just the static click track, and sometimes the loop would come out so cool that it would become a part of the song that I was recording for whoever the artist was.

It’s inspiring to allow yourself to experience electronic drums and percussion. You can add a nice flavor to what you’re doing with acoustic drums. In the ’90s, Roland really started to develop some super-cool instruments for drummers to play. I experimented early on with the TD-7 and the TD-5; I even took one of those devices in the studio on a Michael Jackson session for HIStory. We connected it to a sampler that had samples of him hitting different parts of his body and making a lot of very percussive sounds. And I ended up doing a drum set of him, basically, triggered from maybe a TD-5—I don’t remember which one it was. But it also had some cool sounds [built in].

A few years later I was looking through a Roland Users Group magazine, and I saw an article about a device called the V-Drums and I flipped out. When I read the article and I saw the screenshots of the software in the article, I knew that this device was going to revolutionize electronic drumming forever.

Tell us about the experience of getting your first V-Drums set.

When I got my very first Roland kit, the TD-10, it was everything I thought it would be and more. It’s one thing to see screenshots of something in a magazine and read about the capability, but when you actually get your hands on the thing and you turn it on and you actually start playing it, and you actually start hearing the sound, the way it’s responding to how you play, my mind was really blown then.

Omar Hakim

It gave me so much confidence that I decided to take the drum set on the road with a major artist that I was working with at the time. I was playing with Madonna; I had been in her band for about eight years. She had just put out a record called Ray of Light, and we were about to begin a promo tour to support the record.

The producer, William Orbit, sent me some of the samples, the intention being to load them in the “sampler du jour” and trigger them with whatever. But when I listened to the record, I realized I could accomplish this with the TD-10. All I needed to do was study carefully and make notes to myself of what the sounds were on the various records. And then I began looking in the brain, going through the kicks and the snares, and identifying the ones that were closest to what I was hearing on the record. Once I identified those individual drums, I was able to then tweak them into sounding just like the record with no problem—everything in the brain. And I showed up at rehearsal with the Ray of Light kit, and it was awesome.

Tell us how you felt when you first sat down with the new TD-30, and give us your observations on how V-Drums have evolved from the original TD-10 set.

Well, Roland has come a long way since the TD-10. Over the years, the sound engine has become more refined, the library has grown, the processing has become more powerful, and this latest iteration, the TD-30, is really incredible. I think one of the things that makes it incredible is the addition of the SuperNATURAL engine.

What’s happening now is there is less of a physical adjustment going between an acoustic drum set and an electronic drum set. There are things that you can do on an electronic kit that will never happen on an acoustic kit. And that’s the same for any electronic instrument that has its roots with an acoustic instrument. For instance, pianists that eventually adopt working with electronic keyboards and synths, the keyboard feels different than the acoustic piano, which is typically a weighted device. There are weighted keyboards, but still they’re slightly different, and so it involves a physical adjustment by the musician to express on the instrument. [It’s] no different with the V-Drums.

However, what I would say is that the TD-30 makes that transition something that I don’t think about as hard as I used to. Now I sit down and the movement around the kit and what I’m hearing come out of the speakers in terms of dynamics, smoothness, you know, I’m able to really connect my physical motion and emotion to the instrument effortlessly.

How often do you use V-Drums for session work?

It varies from year to year. There were times when every session I was doing was V-Drums. I’ve had other times when it was sort of 50/50. It just depends on where I am, what circles I’m traveling in at the moment. But I have used the V-Drums actively for the last 16 years, and consistently incorporated them every chance that I’ve gotten to bring them in and actually show them to a producer and artist and say, “Here’s an option.”

When you’re working with a particular artist, will you know when it will be a cool opportunity for using V-Drums? How do you present the options that V-Drums offer to a new artist?

Occasionally I get calls from an artist where V-Drums are the natural choice. They will send me a demo of their music [that’s] primarily drum machine and loop-oriented sounds. I can sort of tell when an artist is very attached to the sound, but they’re calling me because they don’t want it to feel like a machine. So I’m saying, “Okay, I have the tool for this.” In other words, I can provide you with the sound that you like, but I can give you the human feel that you’re looking for that hopefully takes this demo to record quality or the commercial-release quality that you’re looking for.

Omar Hakim

Typically, I’ll bring the kit to the studio, [and] because of the mesh drumheads, I can set up in the control room. When I play the mesh heads, [they’re] relatively silent, [so we can monitor] through the speakers and we have no distraction from the pads. And at that point, I can take them through all of these sounds, and when they start to hear what I’m able to do with the sounds and the editing, and how I can even take the original idea and improve on it, they’re really blown away by it; they start to see the real possibilities of the instrument.

Another thing that I like to do in the studio is to do all of the tweaking in the TD-30 brain. The reason I do that is if they end up calling me for a gig and they want to play that song live, I don’t have to do any more work; I already did the work on the original session—the EQ, the compression, any effects. Many people know that the V-Drums have an ambience generator, which allows you to choose a room type that the V-Drums actually live in—you can change the material of that room, [and] there are options for mic placement. So not only do you have an electronic drums device that gives you virtual real drum sounds along with the more popular electronic drum machine sounds right there at your fingertips, but you have a virtual studio, a virtual mic closet, rooms that you can actually choose from.

It’s insane the power that actually lives in this little box. Even for myself, when I’m working in my own studio, I will connect a MIDI cable to the TD-30, plug it into the system, and capture the MIDI data for whatever I’m playing. [Then] I will pull the brain away from the drum set, shoot that MIDI data back into the brain, and actually tweak the brain—just me, the TD-30, and the speakers—until I get the sound just right. I don’t touch an outboard EQ, I don’t touch any plug-ins in Pro Tools. I do it all in the brain, so that when gig-time comes, I plug it in, dial up the sound, and bam—there it is. [Laughs.]

Do you have some V-Drums sounds in mind when you start writing music, or is it something that happens after the fact in your creative process?

When I compose my own music, the V-Drums are a part of the beginning of the process, because I can set up the V-Drums with my keyboard, and I can have my guitar on a stand, ready to go. Because I still use MIDI to capture performance data, it’s really easy for me to not have to deal with mic’ing my kit or having to bring an engineer in. I just sit down, work up ideas on the piano, then turn around, sit down, and play a couple rhythms on V-Drums. I can get the ideas out fast, capture the MIDI data, and then I can decide whether I want to use acoustic drums on this song down the road or whether I actually like what I started working up with the V-Drums.

For me, the V-Drums are a part of the process because it makes it easy for me to compose. I don’t want anything in the way of that moment when I’m composing music, so it’s a great tool. Back in the day, I would use a drum machine and I would program a little rhythm and jam with it. And then, when I had devices that I could play with sticks, I would use those devices, and it made it easy. But with the V-Drums, not only am I recording ideas, but if I really get into it because it’s so much fun to play, a lot of times I get a usable performance that I have captured via MIDI. Now all I have to do is go back and edit the sound. So it’s a very powerful performance tool, studio tool, and compositional tool.

How important is it for today’s drummers to adopt electronic drums and percussion?

We’re living in a time where you’re hearing an interesting blend of electronics and acoustics on pop records, and it’s really cool. I think it’s important for drummers to understand this tool, because once they understand what this tool can do and how it can enhance their live performance, there are so many ways to use it. You can use it as an add-on thing to your acoustic kit. Of course, because they’re so powerful, [you can] use it as a standalone kit, and anything in between. You’ve got to open up your options as a musician these days. It’s not about being closed-minded any more. I think that drummers really need to balance the use of electronics and acoustic drums, not only for their work, but for their inspiration and fun. It’s a really cool way to experience the future of drumming.

Tell us about the experiences you’ve had introducing engineers and producers to V-Drums.

What’s really interesting about taking V-Drums in the studio is that the moment people see the power, they want one right away—I’ve gotta have this. It’s a no-brainer, basically. They experience the sound, they experience the ease of use, especially people that don’t have a live room to record drums in, you know, that’s a big deal. Everybody has project studios these days. People are putting out records that they’re making on laptop computers. This is where we’re at: people are making records in their spare bedroom, in their living room. And the people that have these personal spaces—and I’ve taken my V-Drums to these places—a lot of them end up getting a V-Drums kit eventually, because they just flip out over the sound, they flip out over the ease. It’s incredible what happens, the look on their face when they see what I’m doing. They can’t believe it.

Do you see electronic drums and percussion being used more prominently in the future?

I’ve been saying for years that in the same way that we saw the emergence of the electric guitar, electric keyboards, and the people who have moved it forward—the Jeff Becks and the Eric Claptons and the Jimi Hendrixs of the world—I think that there’s going to be a moment where there’s just going to be an e-drummer. That’s kind of poised to happen right now. Before this moment, there wasn’t an instrument that a drummer could say, “I can actually make this my axe,” in the same way that there are famous electric guitarists. We know them as electric guitarists—they don’t play acoustic guitar, they play electric guitar, electric bass, that’s what they do. They don’t play acoustic bass. I think that we are getting very close to that moment with drums. A Jimi Hendrix of the drums will emerge from this technology because, for the first time, you’re not stuck with using the instrument in its original concept necessarily. That’s what I think can happen.

Are there any particular V-Drums sounds that you gravitate towards?

That’s interesting. Honestly, I can’t say that there’s one particular sound that I gravitate toward, because after 16 years of using the instrument, I have gone in there so deep that I have found myself using different sounds and different drum sets for different contexts. So, the answer to that is no—I don’t have a particular set, because there are so many incredible sounds in there that I end up just dialing up the right thing for the musical context at that moment. And it’s very easy to do with this device. With this system, it’s no problem. You’re going to find what you need in the TD-30 brain, guaranteed.

Can you see yourself using the new TD-30 live?

Oh yeah. I can see using the TD-30 live, because I actually have been using the TD-30 live. [Laughs.] I recently got my TD-30 kit, and my first job with the TD-30 was a very interesting event for ASCAP. It is a songwriter event that they do every year called “We Write the Songs,” where they celebrate very famous American composers and songwriters. It’s kind of a hats-off to the American songbook, so to speak.

Omar Hakim

Anybody could show up—Stevie Wonder could show up, Tony Bennett could show up. This year, we had Elvin Bishop, Siedah Garrett (who wrote “Man in the Mirror” for Michael Jackson), and a host of other songwriters. I‘m forgetting everyone that was there, but what was interesting about this show was the styles. I had to play music that went back to the 1950s, Broadway show tunes, all the way up to ‘70s rock and roll with Elvin Bishop and “Man in the Mirror,” which is drum machine and samples. What’s the perfect instrument? It was only one choice. It was like, this is a no-brainer: V-Drums.

You know, one song, I’m playing a brush kit. Another song, I have to program these drum machine sounds for Siedah. And then Elvin Bishop wanted to crank up and play “Fooled Around and Fell in Love,” so this drum set is like ambience and reverb on the toms—no problem. I was able to perform each song with the authentic sound for each song. The playing part is not a problem for me because I’ve been playing for so long. But when I can bring this level of sonic accuracy to the artist—and they’re not expecting it and it sounds just like their record—it’s a joy to see their faces, and it makes my job easy.

I spent a day before the rehearsals just kind of going through the music, the charts, the MP3s, programming the kits. [I] rehearsed the next day, tweaked the kits, put them in a song order; you know, there is a part of the TD-30 brain where you can actually set up the kits in order for the show, so you’re not fishing around. Push of a button—song number one, song number two, song number three, no problem. So it’s all very efficient. And it was a huge success; everybody was super-happy, and I think some more V-Drums were sold that day. [Laughs.]

Want to read more about Omar and V-Drums? Check out this interview from 2009.